Cheating Justice (The Justice Team) (21 page)

Fuck hi
. Caroline lurched up, swung her head left and right and,
holy crap
, agonizing stabs shot through the side of her face and she let out a gasp.

Motel parking lot.

It was fully dark now, and for the first time Caroline and her aching head were thankful for the bad lighting.

“No way,” Hillary said. “You need to stay down. We’re about to load you into a bus and run you to the hospital. Do you remember what happened?”

She shifted her eyes right and beside the gurney stood a uniformed cop holding her briefcase. Cops.

“Caroline? Tell me what happened.”

God, the left side of her face was screaming. Like an ax hacking at bone one swing at a time. Over and over and over. Her vision blurred again. “Assholes. Two of them. One punched me. No hospital.”

She rolled sideways and the cop whooshed in, helping Hillary shove Caroline down.

“Caroline!”

Mitch’s voice.
No.
Stay away.
Cops
.

“Whoa, buddy,” the cop said. “Who’re you?”

Don’t tell him.

“She’s with me. What happened?”

Run, Mitch.

But there he was, looming over her, out of breath as if he’d run hard for miles and she lifted her hand, grasping for him. He latched on and squeezed.

“Sir,” Hillary said, “you need to back away.”

The gurney moved and then, clunk, it dropped, her stomach going with it. “Hillary, I’m sure you’re a nice person, but do that again and I’ll arrest you for assaulting a federal agent.”

Hillary smiled. “Well, at least you still have a sense of humor. Sorry, Agent Foster.”

“I’m riding with her,” Mitch said.

“You can meet her there,” the cop said. “Meantime, I need some information from you.”

Listen to him, Mitch
. Her eyes locked with Mitch’s.
Please
. ”It’s okay. I’m okay.”

Mitch focused on her for a solid minute—
please
—then turned back to the cop. “Absolutely. Whatever I can do to help.”

Charming Mitch. The guy nodded and headed for the motel clerk who was giving the play-by-play to onlookers. Brice made some kind of hand motion at Mitch and he started backing up, watching the cop and then scanning the area as if memorizing the faces of everyone standing around.

“What hospital?” Mitch asked as Hillary locked the gurney in place.

“St. Luke’s.”

“Caroline, I’ll follow right behind the ambulance.”

Stupid man
. She waved one hand. “Stay here. I’m fine.”

The bus doors banged shut and Caroline winced at the movement and abrasive sound. Had Mitch heard her? He must have. They needed to stay with Maria. She was the important one. They knew that. They knew they needed to protect their witness.

She had no doubt.

Stay here? Was she delusional? Fuck staying here. Mitch swung away from the cop who had taken a brief statement and seemed satisfied Mitch hadn’t seen a thing. Mitch had lied about his name and worked at keeping his face in shadows while he’d schmoozed the nice police officer. “Brice?”

“Yo.” Brice had hung back and eyed the cop now a few feet away. He hustled to Mitch and handed him the truck keys. “Go. I’ll take care of Maria and move her. We’ll meet up later.”

Mitch hung his head for a second, for just a goddamned second, and inhaled. The sight of Caroline on that stretcher, her cheek red and swelling, made his chest lock up.

“My man,” Brice said, not using Mitch’s name, which was smart with all the people filing around. “Keep it together, okay?”

He was trying. Dammit, he was trying. He wanted to punch something. Someone. Really tear that fucker up. Who had done this and why? Once again, guilt ate a hole in his stomach. This was his fault. He hadn’t wanted to leave Caroline alone. Hadn’t wanted to get her involved in this goatfuck in the first place.

Liar. You always wanted her in your life, one way or another
.

He had to get his shit together and pronto. Stuff all the feelings and worthless emotions into a deep, dark hole. Raising his head, he gripped the truck keys, feeling them bite into his palm. “Go to ground, Brice. We don’t know who or what was behind this. Could have been a random attack, but we’ve pushed buttons in the past two days, and I don’t believe in coincidences. We’ve stirred the hornet’s nest and now we’re going to see who comes out. Keep your eyes open and watch your six.”

“Gotcha.” Brice cocked his chin at the truck. “You do the same. Take care of your gal and watch your back.”

Mitch was tired of watching his back. Tired of running. His first rule of survival was to stay away from the police and look what he’d done the moment he saw Caroline…ran right into the fray.
Stupid, careless…

Caroline. He’d do anything for her.

He jumped in the truck and wheeled out of the parking lot, cursing himself. Some fugitive he was.

But then, you’ve always been a sucker for a pretty woman, just like Tommy.
Not any woman, though. Only Caroline.

Pretty woman
. An image of JLo Junior flashed through his mind. No. No way. Maria couldn’t possibly be…

Now who’s delusional?

It had been one long, fucking day. His mind was a mess. His heart too. No wonder he was having errant thoughts.

Get to Caroline.

“Okay, Agent Foster,” the ER doc said, “we’re sending you up for an x-ray.”

An x-ray
? Based on the noise level in the hallway, the place sounded packed. She’d be here all night and she didn’t have all night to waste. Now that she’d gotten a dose of that handy-dandy pain medication, she was good to go. Ready to roll out of this bed, away from this stuffy, antiseptic, dead germs smelling place, find Brice and Mitch, and check on Maria. Hopefully, they stayed with her.

Both men were smart enough to know that.

The ugly striped curtain separating her bay from the hallway flew open and in stepped Mitch. One of the two men who should have been smart enough to stay with their witness.

Caroline swung her hand in the air. “Oh, my God. Please tell me Brice stayed behind.”

“Relax,” Mitch shot. “It’s fine.”

The doctor extended his hand. “Doctor Winston. You are?”

“A friend. We’re traveling together. How is she?”

“She took a significant blow to her left cheek. I’m sending her for an x-ray.”

Yada, yada. Whatever. The doctor made notes on her chart, told them he’d return when he got results and whooshed out. Mitch waited until the doc cleared and whipped the curtain closed again.

And suddenly—maybe it was the painkillers—her body collapsed. Every tense muscle, like a fist uncurling, released as she watched Mitch move toward the bed. Toward her.

She lifted her hand, reaching for him like some weak-kneed high-schooler begging for his attention. For once, she didn’t care. Not when he reached for her. Not when he closed his fingers around hers. And definitely not when he kissed their conjoined hands.

The moment drifted between them, only the noise from the hallway filling the space and Caroline blinked a couple of times.

He spotted it and knowing she’d hate that he’d seen the weakness in her, he released her hand, set it back on the bed and patted it. No pity.
Thank you.
And, dammit, she loved him.

He bent to examine her cheek. “Holy shit, Caroline. That fucker popped you good. Did you get a look at him?”

“No. There were two of them though. Both men. The one guy had huge hands. Enormous hands, Mitch. Like a pile driver. It happened so quick I couldn’t get a look out the window.”

“You think they were after you or Maria?”

“I’m not sure. They didn’t say anything. Other than ‘leave her’ when the clerk came running out. But forget that. What did you find at Maria’s?”

“Nothing.”

Really? That was his response? They’d been gone five hours and had nothing? “Well damn.”

Mitch shrugged. “There’s more bad news.”

Well, this would be good…considering the mess they were already in. “Lay it on me.”

“Ethan’s SAC went ape-shit after the U.S. Attorney called him complaining about Brice poking around.”

“Oh no.”

“Yeah. Ethan’s one of the only guys left in that office that even knew Tommy and he’s scared.”

She knew where this was going. Ethan had a family to protect. He wouldn’t want to be caught up in this fiasco. She couldn’t blame him.
She
didn’t want to be caught up in it.

“There’s an upside.” He tilted his hand back and forth. “Eh, an upside and another downside.”

If Mitch was trying to make her feel better he was doing a crappy job. “Mitch?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re driving me crazy.”

“Ethan also said the big shots involved with the taskforce called a meeting. He suspects the shit’s about to hit the fan.”

A meeting. Considering the taskforce was housed in New Mexico, she made the assumption the meeting would be held here. But Tommy was still an FBI agent, basically on loan to Operation Bulletproof.

And Donaldson was his SAC. Which meant…

She closed her eyes and breathed in. The slight movement sent hot pain ricocheting through the left side of her face.
Please don’t let it be fractured.
Maybe she needed a fresh cocktail of drugs.

The pain eased to a dull throb and she opened her eyes. “Is Donaldson coming?”

“He’s already here. At least I’m guessing. Ethan said he jumped on a plane this afternoon. If he’s not here, he will be soon.” Mitch stepped closer, ran a hand down the good side of her face. “He won’t find us. You haven’t used your credit cards and Brice moved Maria. We’ll meet up with them once you’re done here, and hopefully, she’ll talk to us.”

Caroline threw back the sheet and sat up. “Forget the x-ray.”

Mitch held her in place. “Nuh-uh. Medical complications won’t help us. Get the x-ray and we disappear again.”

“Mitch—”

“No, Caroline. You’re getting the x-ray.” Before she could argue, he spun toward the curtain separating the room from the outer hallway. “I’ll see what the wait time is.”

It better not be long. She’d give them twenty minutes. That’s right. If someone didn’t wheel her up for the test in twenty minutes, Mitch or no Mitch, she was gone.

The curtain parted again and she looked up, ready to let Mitch know exactly what her plan was and—
oh crap
. If she had any spit left in her dry mouth it just evaporated.
Cocktail, please!

An extremely pissed off looking Donaldson, his face redder than she’d ever seen, stood in the doorway.

“Foster,” he said, “what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Chapter Seventeen

Two things shot through Caroline’s mind. Well, two things after the
shit-shit-shit
stream that lasted a full thirty seconds. The first involved Mitch and whether or not Donaldson had spotted him. Probably not. Otherwise, Donaldson would have grabbed him or at least started hollering. And knowing Mitch, he’d have hollered back and security would have come running and then the police. All resulting in Mitch in handcuffs.

Caroline rolled her bottom lip out. Clearly, Donaldson hadn’t spotted him.

The second, more obvious question was how the heck did Donaldson know she was here?

She stared up at her boss, every word stuck in her throat like a giant piece of steak she couldn’t force down. She swallowed once, twice, three times and croaked a “Sir?”

He grabbed the cheap metal chair next to the bed, dragged it over, hitched his ugly brown suit pants and sat. For added effect, he shot his cuffs. “You did a decent job of laying low. Except I received a courtesy call from the PD telling me one of my agents got the stuffing beat out of her. Now, you tell me exactly what you’ve been up to on this Tommy Nusco thing and then I’ll decide if I fire your ass.”

“Sir, please.”

“Start talking, Foster. I’ve got a meeting first thing tomorrow morning to discuss how a sealed document pertaining to the death of one of my agents got leaked to a blog. And then I get here and find you.”

“Sir—”

Donaldson raised his hand, his eyes hard and mean, a snake about to strike. “Fuck the
Sir
crap. The only thing I want to hear from you is you didn’t leak classified documents. Tell me that, and maybe I can help you.”

She couldn’t tell him that. Not even close. Sure, she could lie. But she wouldn’t. If she got fired, so be it, at least she’d go down knowing she tried to clear Tommy’s name.

And Mitch’s.

“Sir, something is screwy here.”

Donaldson jumped out of his chair, heaving his weight like it took every ounce of strength. Uh. Oh.

“I asked you for one goddamned thing!”

Caroline flinched and he paced to the wall, turned back to her, his face an odd shade of reddish purple she’d seen one other time. Of course, that time involved Mitch as well.

He pressed his palm into his forehead, took a deep breath, then dropped it. “Why do I think Mitch Monroe is behind this?”